Hospitality sites require some form of check-in process. Exemplary hospitality sites include hotels, motels, apartment complexes, time-share facilities, hospitals, and cruise ships. The check-in process to a hospitality site can be arduous. Lines of patrons form as hospitality sites struggle to authenticate guests and receive their individual requests. Consider a cruise-ship experience.
A cruise is often an expensive engagement. Costing hundreds and even thousands of dollars, a cruise is sold on catering to the individual. The cruise offers an “all-inclusive” type experience where much of the guests' necessities are included in the purchase price. Patrons often travel by plane from a home city to board the ship. After arriving at the dock, guests must wait in long lines to have their credentials authenticated and to submit or confirm any personal requests. The current state of the art requires guests to arrive several hours in advance to allow for the time necessary to check in. There is much at stake in making sure that first, the right patron is checked in and second, that the patron is checked in properly.
Unscrupulous persons can duplicate travel tickets and identifying information such as a driver's license, a passport, or birth certificate. Modern-day stowaways prey on the unwary and can steal an unsuspecting victim's vacation. The present state of the art could be improved by providing a more dependable authenticating system for checking people into hospitality sites. But authentication alone is not enough to meet the expectations of guests.
Guests have high demands and expect individual attention. Guests expect amenities that they will enjoy. Cruises attract people from all over the world. A cruise liner does not have the luxury of offering American festivities and English-only menus. Many patrons end up waiting to make special requests until check-in. Moreover, time is of the essence as the cruise ship must disembark at a precise time to stay on a meticulously planned schedule. Guests will not book future cruises if they have to wait in long lines, payment is not handled properly, and/or room assignments are erroneous.
The nonexhaustive list of inefficiencies provided above are not limited to the cruise industry. Rather, hotels, time-shares, etc., are plagued by inefficient check-in procedures, identity theft, and mundane amenity offerings.
The medical industry also suffers from shortcomings of current admittance procedures, especially in emergency situations. Identifying a patient quickly can improve medical treatment and even save lives. But today, there is no way to rapidly identify a patient if the patient does not have identifying indicia on him/her. Without this identifying information, and relevant medical data, medical professionals have to either guess or perform tests to determine the best course of treatment. Guessing leads to errors and performing tests takes time, time that could be better spent assisting the patient. There is a need to rapidly identify patients and obtain relevant medical information.
The current state of the art could be improved by providing a system that allows multiple hospitality sites to access a portable biometric profile that accurately and efficiently identifies persons or groups. Further, it would be useful to more efficiently communicate a guest's preferences to a hospitality site in association with the biometric profile.